Diamonds ar a Girls Best Friend

I wasn't sure how to start off this post as if I went in a humorous direction the ladies may get offended or I might have found myself in the dog house. So in leu of humor I will just explain the following image. I think it must be one of the De Beer's that coined the phrase "Diamonds are a girls best friend". Actually it was a song written by Jule Styne and introduced by Carol Channing in 1949 during the original Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I will agree that when the right light hits the many facets they do look stellar.

So on with the post. Last weekend we had been enjoying the many products of the artists involved in the Grand Rapids Art Festival known as ArtPrize.Literally hundreds of sculptures, paintings, wooden, steel, and just about any medium including salt and red clay powder were all throughout the Grand Rapids downtown area including business and restaurants.

We went into the Art Museum and within a case was this diamond Tierra. It is one that belongs to the Princess Diana collection and was on display to advertise the up coming show in Grand Rapids of her collection.

I had gone downtown with my 40D and the ever dependable EF 24-105 f/4 L IS lens mounted. The problem being that I was inside and that meant pushing the ISO to get anything out of the shot. If the case had better lighting like in a jewelry store this ok shout would have turned into a magnificent shot. Hence at f/4 the edges/back of the Tierra blur out slightly.

I brought it into Lightroom and dis some local adjustment on exposure to darken the background, cropped it to a 16:9 format, sharpened and did some noise reduction.

I don't know that I would ever wear it but I know a number of princesses that would jump at the opportunity.

Take care... Doug

Tora Tora Tora

There I was flying along and all of a sudden I was joined by a rare bird. I had been transported back in time 70 years and a Japanese Zero had joined up on me. Ok so that really didn’t happen and while this aircraft looks very much like a Mitsubishi A6M Zero or codename Zeke but it was not either.

As noted by the markings on the side of the aft fuselage it was built by the Canadian Car & Foundry company as a Harvard Mk 4 in 1952 and used by the RCAF until 1988 when it was sold to private individuals.

It was eventually purchased by 20th Century Fox and was rebuilt as a replica of a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero from World War 2. Other markings on the fuselage indicated it was used in some well known Hollywood movies and TV show including Tora, Tora, Tora, and Bah, Bah, Black Sheep.

So how did I get the picture above. Well... It’s not exactly real either. The pictures are but the composition is not. The sky came from a time when I was in Florida last year and the airplane was sitting on the ramp at the Wichita KS Mid Continent Airport. Yesterday we took some passengers form White Plains NY to Wichita and as we pulled up to the ramp I noticed the “Zero”. I broke out the XTi and 28-135 and grabbed some shots.

A little CS5 work to make a prop look mildly believable and I had a usable image.


Thats it fro now as I am working on a stuffy nose. To the point, I will probably skip tomorrow and continue on Thursday with the Process Series.


Take care as I will try to... Doug

Photo Passion

I just got done watching the most amazing, reflective, introspective, self-analyzing video on photography. I could probably come up with a few more descriptive words but I think you get my point. It is no doubt the best two hours I have spent in the past couple of years in photography.

Scott Kelby (left) goes on a personal photo-walk/workshop with renowned New York photographer Jay Maisel (right). Jay is 79 years old and expounds the most concise, to-the-point nuggets of insightful information as to who, what, and why we are photographers.

Here are just a couple of the take-away points from the video that I would like to pass on. Jay talks about triggers to shoot, when to shoot is as important as what we shoot. Photos should have surprises, content, triggers, and passion. All of which will draw the viewer thoughts into the image.

Jay touched a number of times on the triggers of photography. What is it that made you take that shot. Subject, foreground, background... What? it’s the whole thing. This goes along with many photographers philosophy of shoot the whole frame.

One of the best quotes that I took away from this video was when Jay was reflecting on something someone asked him in the past. That was, “Does he know what he is doing?” To that his response was “I’m going to discover what I’m doing.” That was very interesting as earlier this week I heard another statement at a friends funeral. That was, “If you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans.” Life is happening all around us, we just need to stand back, take time to appreciate it and the images will come to us.

One of the things I see in the popular photographic instruction arena is the notion of do this and you will get that. This is a sound instructional tool but what is missed is the need to do it your way. We are all guilty of mimicking other photographic styles until we develop our own but Jay puts it very succinctly in that he says:

Don’t learn to shoot like someone else...

Learn to shoot like nobody else.

What words of wisdom.

In some final thoughts over lunch, Jay gave Scott these words.

• Have fun
• Be excited for what you shoot
• Don’t shoot unless it excites you.

WOW! There is so much information to be gleaned form this video that I will no doubt watch is a few more times. It is not often i will take notes while watching a video but I kept on saying to myself, “I gotta get that!”

I would encourage anyone to go to Kelby Training and sign up for at least the one month membership for $24.95 if only to watch this one video. As an attender of a number of seminars now on photography, all off them have been good, but none of them have offered so much for so little. I must caution you though, with that one month membership, you can watch any of the hundreds of videos Scott and his team have put together. You will want more!

I’ll close with a quote Jay made of Ernst Haas;

We don’t take pictures...

We are taken by pictures.

Take care all... Doug

P.S. I think the video series is available for free on KelbyTraining. Click here to try it out.

Shark Attack!

Is it a blue fin shark, a great blue, or what?

So there I was on my little photowalk in Wichita KS last week and I came upon a location that showed some interest. Clicking away at some interesting angles and all of a sudden I see this little object. Poised and ready to attack the first thing in its path.

It is part of a larger picture which has three siblings. While this is named after the Kansas mythical mascot Jayhawk, its sibling Kanza was named after the Kanza Indians from which the State of Kansas gets its name. The Jayhawk' other sibling defeated the Italian II Moro di Venezia back in 92'.

Is it:

A. A SGTD - Self Guided Torpedo Device

B. The survivor of a world class piñata contest.

C. A counter weight

D. A power pack to propel men under water.

If you answered C you would be correct! It is the keel counterweight for an America's Cup yachts.

You can see the larger picture to the left how it is attached to the keep of the yacht.

The image to the right is a longer shot of the whole boat. So why is it sitting in Wichita Kansas you ask? Believe me, it was the question on my mind too. Actuallyy the Jayhawk was the first America's Cup yacht to be built by an aerospace manufacturer. It was constructed of carbon fiber (high tech stuff in 91') by Hercules Aerospace near Salt Lake City, Utah.

Ok... So where is the Wichita connection... Ready? Bill Koch was the head of the America3 Foundation which build three (oddly enough) Americas Cup Yachts for the 1992 campaign. The Kanza, the America3 (this is the one that beat the italians, and you guessed it... The Jayhawk. With a little web browsing, I found out that Bill is the son of Fred who founded Koch Industries in Wichita KS in 1940 who invented a crude oil refining process. BINGO!

There's the money. Daddy warbucks came up with the brainiac idea that made the family gabillions to which Willy parts with the brothers Koch and a sizable sum of cash and parties on the high seas. Ok.. The facts might be a little skewed but you get the point.

Anyhow, Bill must have felt the home town strings pulling because that is where he decided to let the Jayhawk come to rest overlooking the banks of the Arkansas River.

I gotta tell-ya, there is always a story behind the photo.

Cya... Doug

Proud Structure

One more form my solo drive from Maryland back to Grand Rapids. Seeing as how the day was dreary and drab, I was really looking for somewhere to stop on the way home to shoot. I saw one of those brown information signs on the highway that said Fort Frederick. this quickened my interest and I was off route in search of the fort.

When I first saw the fort it reminded me of the fort in St. Augustine FL we visited a few years ago. The shape is unique in that it provides a view of the fort wall from the inside allowing a strong defensive position. Fort Frederic was constructed in 1758 and was used in Maryland's defense against the French and Indians whom where allies during the war that ran from 1753-1763.

Below is a overhead view of Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida. It was build by the Spanish in 1695. It was known as Fort St. Mark from 1763 to 1784 while under British control and more recently Fort Marion from 1821 until 1942 when it was once again given its original name. I found it quite interesting how accurate the construction was between the two forts from a defensive posture.

Hey I didn't mean for this to be a history lesson but it's always rewarding to expand our knowledge of this great nation we live in.

Take car and Cya... Doug